The first CMASS launch of the year brought a big crowd of people sporting their new rockets freshly built from the winter building season. And a lot of people itching to burn some high-power propellant. This was the first CMASS launch with a waiver since last August.

My main goal at this launch was to get my L1 HPR certification. But first I had to learn how to build my RMS motor, which I had never done before. I decided that I would watch Mikkel try his hand at one first before building the H128-W I had on deck.

In the meantime, I loaded a spare B6-4 into the Wizard and let it rip. Literally. Separated cleanly at the base of the shock cord. Found both pieces in the high grass, luckily.

Then it was time for Mikkel to launch his brand-new Aerotech Cheetah. He got the motor built and I watched carefully. Unfortuantely, during construction of the rocket he had put the motor adapter in the place of the thrust ring and thus the RMS engine he was using didn't fit right.

The motor stuck out about 1.5cm too far, and had to be friction mounted. The resultant rocket was just barely unstable and ended up core sampling over by the cars. Maiden flight: ruined. He can probably salvage all of the lower half of the rocket, but it'll take some serious surgery to get it running again.

So then it was time for my certification attempt. I contracted Doug Gardei to take some video of my prep and launch activites. He delegated the job to Ryan Sebastian and instead helped me put together my H128-W. He had some very helpful advice and tricks.

I got the motor installed, recovery system hooked up and stuffed, and took it to Bill for my certification checklist. Everything checked out. Bill had good things to say about the rocket design and wished me good luck. I set it up on high power pad A.

With my entourage filming and standing by with still cameras, I retreated to the launch site and waited for them to hit the button. The ignitor worked great and it roared off. The Nerd Magnet is relatively heavy for an H128 so it didn't disappear or anything, but it flew nice and high. I would estimate about 1200-1500'.

I had angled the launch rod about 30 degrees into the wind, which was strong. It took awhile for the chute to work its way out of the tube and unfurl so it didn't drift nearly as far as I thought it would. I had sent my friends downwind for recovery, but it landed several hundred meters upwind. The chute seemed to be working fine as it landed softly. I took off after it.

Now the Amesbury launch field is pretty large. And I've launched on it several times. In my time here I have never seen a rock in this field. But the Nerd Magnet somehow managed to come down right on a patch of rocks in an obscure corner of the field. The nosecone apparently hit right on one of them, bending the very tip slightly and chipping the paint. The body tube came down on another one and chipped the paint there as well. My luck. However, the robust design of the rocket kept the rocky landing from inflicting any real damage.

As an encore, I threw in the other high power propellant I've had languishing in my field box since last September, an H165-R. This was my first time trying redline propellant and I was very happy with the results.

The motor build went without a hitch. Launched from the same pad at the same angle. The pink flame on redline motors is awesome. The picture doesn't do it justice. This time the parachute came out immediately upon ejection and it drifted a little closer to the launch area. A perfect flight again!

After this flight we stayed around to watch Al Buck get his L2 cert flight and Doug Gardei launch a nice cluster rocket.